By: Nick Gambino
There have been a few complaints lobbed at Airbnb over the years and most of them come back to lack of transparency. And more specifically, hiding the full booking price until the very end in what feels like a bait and switch.
This has been a pretty major issue as Airbnb users could see prices jump hundreds if not thousands of dollars from the initial selection to checkout. This is because there are a bunch of tacked-on fees for things like cleaning, service, etc. It’s not too dissimilar from Uber Eats when a simple $10 salad turns into a $37 order.
The only price jump that is truly acceptable at the end is when they add on taxes. Though not knowing sales tax until you’re paying is one of my biggest pet peeves with American retail in general.
All that is to say, Airbnb is now correcting this by showing the full price of a booking right at the top by default before you’ve become invested in a property.
“Starting today, guests around the world will see the total price of their stay – including all fees before taxes – right from the start,” an Airbnb blog post announcing the change reads.
The property rental platform rolled this out to other parts of the world like Australia, Canada, Europe and Korea years ago but only offered it to US users as an optional feature. There are plenty of people who never knew they could turn it on and see full pricing on the search page. This new rollout will make total pricing the standard format.
Airbnb is always trying to strike the best balance between serving guests and serving hosts. Unlike hotels, both are users and customers of Airbnb. I’m sure hiding pricing ahead of time somehow worked in favor of hosts – to a degree at least. But it’s hard to imagine that this hasn’t tainted the Airbnb brand in general which in the long run doesn’t favor hosts at all.
The new total pricing format rolls out worldwide starting right away.
